Jonathan's eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the stranger. There was a glassy, vacant quality to his eyes, even when he was boring a hole through someone with them. This new kid's story did not impress him much (and it showed), nor did there seem to be any immediate threat from him. Still, if he trusted the wrong person, just once...it wouldn't be the first time. He made mistakes, after all. What ten year old boy, no matter how smart he could claim to be, didn't? His mother forgave him for it, at least, even if others were less merciful. "I won't yell if you won't hit me," he said, finally. And that was the only time he would throw the offer onto the table.
Impossibly close to the turn in his own hall, the other boy did stand in front of a door, one that seemed pointlessly set a foot or two back into the wall. The longer, perpendicular corridor ran in the opposite direction of it. "What's on the other side of this?" he asked, mentally crossing his fingers that the boy would say the word "library" or, better yet, "outside". Unfortunately, whether or not he cared for his present company, the Jimmy Nickels being discussed did not sound like someone Jon could survive a run-in with.
He looked over his shoulder, back in his own direction. The door, his door, was gone, replaced with more empty space between an infinte stretch of parallel doors and walls. Like the whole area had turned itself around when he wasn't looking. His eyes went furiously wide and flickered off to the unexplored hallway to his right, as though to blame it for his lost sense of direction. (Fear of getting lost? He couldn't pull that to mind, either.) "There's no way outta here." Not quite true, but Jonathan couldn't admit that he didn't know where it was.